Ferociousgot set aside for a couple days to focus on a short story for the anthology And Hell Followed. This story was a rarity for me in that I went over the minimum length (3000 words) and even the preferred length (4000 words), finishing at a little over 4500 words. The editor bought me a barbecue dinner at KillerCon this past summer, so it was extremely important that I meet the deadline, lest he send his goons to get the meal back.

Cold Dead Hands had a very strong launch. If it were a novel, I’d be setting off fireworks to celebrate. Unfortunately, it’s a 99-cent novella. I usually get 70% royalties when somebody buys a Kindle edition of my books, but that drops to 35% when a title is priced under $2.99. So Cold Dead Hands has to sell six times as many copies as something like Bang Up to generate the same amount of cold hard cash. (Not that it’s difficult to sell six times as many copies as Bang Up. Maybe Sick House is a better example.)